China schooling the US

I knew it had to happen someday. The rough consensus among China-watchers is that the best precedent for China’s rise, at least in the realms of economics and business, is Japan. One peculiar phase of the Japanese-American relationship was when Harley-Davidson ended up redoing its entire production methodology based on what it had learned from its Japanese rivals (who were willing to help, in order to defuse trade tensions.) The Japanese Production System might have been inspired by an American consultant (Deming), but American companies never became world-class experts in applying it.

I ran into an article the other day, although minor, that marks the first time I’ve ever heard a similar story about China. Ford’s China social marketing team was sent to the US to train their counterparts there. Many people know that the Chinese government controls almost every form of communication. The word 宣传 sort of shares the meanings of “propaganda” and “marketing;” ‘red envelopes’ are an expected practice at press conferences. And of course Facebook and other American-based social networking services are blocked. But focusing on the top-down aspects of this phenomenon neglects that it comes equally from the bottom up. Despite all of the censorship, there really is a vibrant Chinese internet. People simply expect their information to come from sources close to them – another aspect of the Chinese attitudes towards geography I’ve mentioned several times before.

A lot of this seems very different from Japan. Innovative marketing and Kanban production are very different things, implying very different personality types. It’s important when making the comparison to Japan to note that there are some deep-seated differences that have nothing to do with Capitalism or Communism. On the other hand, these examples do both come from the auto industry – an important status symbol in either production or consumption.